What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

I am trying to make sense of the amount of exercise recorded in the workout app both in minutes and calories. I have tried the app twice with bicycling, twice with an elliptical, and once with an outdoor walk to calibrate the watch to my stride. The watch records about 55% of the calories logged in other sources, e.g. a Precor elliptical machine, the Bi.cycle app on the Iphone. Exercise machines are notorious for being generous in their calorie estimates but I have checked this Precor against my Polar heart rate monitor many times. It always came within 10 calories of the 700 or so my Polar said I burned in an hour. The Apple Watch came up with 425 calories! Another disconcerting result was being credited for 8 minutes of exercise for a 50 minute bike ride in a hilly area.

I wonder if when Apple tested the watch on its employees there were none at my age (68). Maybe the threshold for heart rate is set so high that when I am doing what I feel is equivalent to a "brisk walk" (say 120 bpm) it doesn't count as exercise minutes. Apple seems to be treating the heart-rate-threshold equivalency of a brisk walk as a trade secret. Since one of the key functions of the watch is fitness Apple should be crystal clear about what is counted as the watch records exercise minutes and calories burned.

I am not bothered that the watch's heart run function is less responsive than a chest strap to changes in heart speed. The person with a heart condition who wrote on this forum that he needs to know when he is reaching his safety threshold ought to buy a chest strap. If he gets a bluetooth strap the watch can record his heart rate and keep all of his data in the health app. For users without a heart problem the delay in recording the heart rate peak shouldn't affect the estimated calories or minutes of exercise.

I am not even bothered by what appears to be the underestimate of the calories. For my purposes any consistent measure of calories burned will help me gauge my progress. I am, however, bothered by the obscurity of Apple's information on what gets counted.

Hi Alexroet,

From your post I understand you'd like to learn more about what the Exercise ring displays, along with getting it better calibrated to your activity level. First, outlined below is some information on what the Exercise ring displays, and second is a link with instructions to help calibrate your Apple Watch. Keep in mind as well, that wearing your Apple Watch more will help improve its accuracy.

The Exercise ring. This displays how many minutes of brisk activity you've completed towards a goal of 30 minutes. Every minute of movement that equals or exceeds a brisk walk, whether it’s working out or playing with your kids, counts toward your Exercise goal.

Apple Watch uses different kinds of information to calculate your overall activity and caloric burn. The more your Apple Watch learns about you, the more customized its calculations become.

For example, enter some data about yourself when you open Activity for the first time, like your age and weight. This will help Apple Watch make calculations just for you. Then wear your Apple Watch regularly so that the accuracy of your data continues to improve over time. Get the most customized caloric burn and overall activity readings by using your Workout app with your iPhone when you walk or run outside.

Use Activity on Apple Watch - Apple Support

Calibrating your Apple Watch for improved Workout and Activity accuracy - Apple Support

Have a great weekend,

Alex H.

Does this suggest that your husband needs to do the callibration exercise https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT204516 which will teach his watch how his heart responds to particular distance as measured by the GPS, and and it then uses this information to measure his 'exercies' fro then on?

I had the same ... used other instead of spinning and got a much better calorie count.

Everyone should go report this to http://www.apple.com/feedback, otherwise apple won't know to work on the resting calorie rate and exercise calorie rate as well as the minutes of exercise.

arsook wrote:

Please go to https://www.apple.com/feedback/watch.html and report the problem. Hopefully it will be addressed in the next software update.

I have reported my issues. I'll be waiting to see what we hear from WWDC next week, if there's nothing I'll probably be returning my Watch.

What's the point wearing it if you have no idea what it's doing? Visual feedback is a great principle but not when you get conflicting results trying to react to that feedback.

If you would like to send feedback or suggestions to Apple, you can do so here:

I'm doing so frequently. But I want the feedback in the communities as well, as Apple invites us to post feedback in these forums. It improves the quality of the feedback, if the members in the community discuss it. All of us are using ourApple products in different ways and comparing the ways how we are using the products helps to understand the possible limitations and the advantages for other tasks.

The Terms of Use for these communities (https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5952) have changed some time ago and now include the sentence: "2.3 Submissions: .... Constructive feedback about product features is welcome as well."

frannbug wrote:

Me too. When I first got my Apple Watch I struggled up six flights of stairs as fast as my arthritic legs would allow me and felt as though I was in danger of a heart attack afterwards. My watch didn't even notice and registered a zero. Yesterday I walked for a couple of hours, fairly slowly, with a walking stick. Afterwards I was shattered but my watch registered next to nothing. There is only one guaranteed method of getting that green circle to shift for me: to play a piece of piano music that has thundering semiquavers in the left hand!

If anyone knows how to get it to register more gentle exercise on the green circle, I might be more inclined to do some…

See the latter section of my previous reply, beginning "If you would prefer to receive Exercise credit for the full duration":

Re: What counts as "exercise" for the green ring??

I think the stationary left arm may well be the key thing here.

As a test, I did a 15-minute walk on Sunday with just the watch (no phone) and everything got measured correctly, so we know it works sometimes.

The watch doesn't have GPS, so the only way it knows you're moving is via its internal accelerometer (the same sensor that notices when you raise your wrist). If you're doing steady pace, but not swinging the watch arm, it won't detect all of the motion very well.

The only time the watch uses GPS/HR sensors is when you specifically choose a Workout from the Workout app -- and I assume only an outdoor one for GPS. Otherwise, its only using the accelerometer and gyroscope to detect your motion and acceleration. Its similar to how the M7/M8 coprocessors and CoreMotion track your steps only calibrated to a swinging wrist.

A good way to understand this stuff to read about the CoreMotion framework. It describes how the sensors can be used to track your movement. My guess would be outdoor run vs walk is calibrated differently to assess your stride length which would be shorter in a walk...and I am sure other complex calculations. If you can pre-limit the exercise for the watch, it probably helps it make it more accurate since it can more finitely determine the measurements if it can cut out the noise. It doesn't surprise me run would give you more as i am guessing the baseline calculations may start from a higher point. Perhaps just choose Other as that will not preset it. Then see how it attempts to figure out your exercise...

While it should be clarified, the exercise ring is kind of pointless. Its really just a measure of exertion and that will show up in a higher rate of calorie burn. The Move ring is the best measure of your activity. Getting 30 mins of exercise according to the AW but missing your Move by 100 cals is prob not as beneficial as going over your Move by 100 and hitting only 10 on the exercise.

When walking with the stroller, do you have both hands on the handle, or just one? If just one, maybe switching the watch to the free wrist will help?

The other possibility is that the watch just isn't measuring correctly - maybe a call to support?

The watch only has 3 ways to find out if you're exercising:

- Your heart rate is up

- There's a stepping kind of movement in your wrist

- GPS

I was wondering the same thing. The watch "congratulated" me the other day for a "personal best" of 9 minutes of exercise! I am going to try using "other" instead of "outdoor walk" and see if it works for me too.

I have the same experience. I rushed to the doctors for a stress test.... very stressful (!!!!) and felt my heart pounding a little and the measure on the watch was 130 BPM then a couple of minutes later Exercise had increased by 2 minutes!!. If I use OTHER in WORKOUT I get about the time of the exercise minus 1 or 2 minutes which I take to be the warm up time before my heart starts pumping enough to register with the exercise monitor. So I feel it is solved but would like Apple to add a specific TREADMILL to WORKOUT to allow for holding onto the handles and not swinging the arms - the measures in INSIDE WALK include more monitors than OTHER.

I think the configuration is only suited to outdoor walking and running but will try that soon.